


Soft Pillows

by padfootagain



Category: Jackie & Ryan (2014)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 10:50:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17262899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/padfootagain/pseuds/padfootagain
Summary: Ryan comes to visit you at your home after being absent for some time. But meeting your world makes him doubt his value and his ability to make you happy.





	Soft Pillows

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this for an event on tumblr with the prompts :  
> 18\. “You’re more important to me than my own life.”  
> 38\. “Hell, I missed you so damn much…”  
> 48\. “Promise me you’ll come back to me. Promise me I’ll see you again.”  
> 53\. “How could I live without you?”  
> Hope you all like this!

When he arrived before the door of your house, he hesitated. He took a look around him at the beautiful cars, and nice houses of your neighbourhood. It had taken him an eternity to manage to get to the outskirts of Philadelphia, and even more so to reach the quiet and quite rich part of the town where you lived. One of your neighbours was staring at him, washing his red Ferrari. On the other side of the street, a little girl was trying to learn how to ride a bike, her mother running after her in high heels.

He then looked down at his dirty jeans and worn-out boots and the dirt under his fingernails…

He felt out of place. He didn’t belong here. During all these weeks that he had been away, you had called each other every day. But you had met in other circumstances… At a party on the other side of the country. You were staying there for a month for your work, and he had remained in Sacramento as long as you were there. And he couldn’t remember any part of his life when he had been as happy as he was during this month that he had lived by your side.

But the next second you were gone home and he was left alone in Sacramento.

So he had jumped in a train again, travelling aimlessly throughout the US. But every time he took a new train, it always went East, and transported him a closer to you.

He missed you. He missed you more than he had missed anything in his life. You were his first thought in the morning, and his last thought at night. The thought of you was always in the back of his mind. All the songs he wrote were about you. You haunted his dreams at night and he thought he recognized you on every face he saw.

But now that he was facing your life, he realized there was a gap between the two of you. An ocean. A wall. Something he was not sure to overcome.

But he had promised you he would come to see you today, and he was a man of his word. So he took a deep breath, and knocked on your door.

An old woman who was walking with her dog down the street glowered at him as she passed before your house.

There was some loud noise coming from inside the house, and the next second, you were opening the door.

Ryan grinned. You hadn’t changed a bit…

“RYAN!”

You jumped in his arms, crushing your lips to his before he could speak a single word. Although, he didn’t complain about your way to welcome him to your home…

When you finally pulled away, both of you left breathless by this kiss, you rested you brow against his while he carried you inside the house.

“I was afraid you couldn’t come…” you breathed.“ _Hell, I missed you so damn much…_ ”

“I promised you I’d come,” Ryan whispered in response.

He gently put you down on the ground again, and he put down his pack and his guitar, and took off his jacket, before holding you again against him once more.

“I missed you too, Y/N,” he whispered in your hair.

You breathed deeply his scent of soap and lemon.

“You didn’t have any trouble to get here?” you asked, your voice shushed by his worn-out T-shirt.

“I’ve seen worse.”

You looked up at him.

“Would you like me to show you around the house?”

He smiled, nodding.

You guided him through the large hall and to a living room filled with wooden furniture. It was beautifully decorated, but just by the sight of the furniture, he could see that only piece of the furnishings was worth more than he had ever earned in his life. He glanced over at the large TV, and didn’t dare imagine how much it cost…

The same happened in the kitchen, and in the bedrooms, and everywhere in the house. Everywhere he looked things looked expensive and precious.

He felt like he was out of place again. Not because he wasn’t at ease with you by his side, but he was afraid he would break something, he didn’t dare to touch anything but your hand. He had never thought about money or the prize of things before, he thought it was a rather superficial thing, it was something he didn’t need in his life, it wasn’t something that could bring him happiness and so he had never cared about it. But clearly it wasn’t the same for you. Clearly you liked beautiful things he had never cared about. And he was afraid it would bother you that he thought differently from you on this point, that he wasn’t able to buy you anything that could fit in your home.

For the first time since he had met you, he was scared about what would happen next in your relationship.

He loved you. Hell… he loved you like he had never loved anyone in his life. He was so scared you would realize this difference between your ways of living and would leave him for someone richer, someone who could buy you the kind of things you owned yourself…

“Come on, let’s go to the garden,” you said, pulling him towards the door. “It’s a beautiful day!”

You both walked outside and you invited Ryan to sit around the wooden table that was set in the middle of the grass.

“You want something to drink?” you asked.

“A coffee?”

“Sure!”

You disappeared inside the house again, and he looked at the garden. He breathed deeply the scent of roses that floated in the air. Even your garden was beautiful…

You came back with two coffees and some biscuits. You talked about his journey east for the rest of the afternoon, until it was time for diner. Ryan insisted to cook, and you ate his lasagnas sitting on the grass, both of you bathed in the bleeding lights of dusk as you told him about what had happened to you for the past two months.

He was still as handsome as he was when you had waved at him at the airport of Sacramento. He still had this soft laugh of his, and his sweet smile, and tender eyes…

Hell, you had him deep under your skin.

You ran your fingers through the grass, enjoying the tickling sensation, summoning your courage to ask the question you dreaded so much.

“Ryan… when are you planning on leaving?” you asked softly.

He looked up at you. He tried to fake a little laugh, but inside, his soul was shaking.

“Why? You already want me to leave?” he asked, and he was making it sound like a joke, but he was deadly serious.

“Of course not,” you laughed. “I’m just… wondering. I mean… the last time you stayed until I would leave town. But I’m not going to leave town this time so…”

He shrugged.

“I don’t know yet.”

You nodded, before crawling next to him, and he wrapped his reassuring arms around you.

“I love you, you know?” you whispered against his neck.

“I love you too, Y/N. I love you with all my heart. _You’re more important to me than my own life._ ”

You rubbed your cheek against his beard, making both of you chuckle.

“Ryan?”

“Yes?”

“Could you take me to the bedroom now?”

You saw his cheeks slightly reddening despite the growing shadows brought by the night as it slowly fell upon the world. But he also had a smile on his face.

Because no matter how much your house or its furniture cost, you were exactly the simple, intelligent, sweet, funny woman he had fallen in love with two months before.

And even if it was just for one night, he wanted to believe that life could be just that simple…

“What about the dirty plates?” he asked, rubbing his nose against yours.

You both closed your eyes.

“We’ll deal with the enemy tomorrow morning, but for now…”

You kissed his earlobe and left a trail of peppered kisses down his neck, your hands slipping under his T-shirt, and you could hear that his breathing was more labored already.

“…for now I just want us to catch up on all this time we could have spent together and that we wasted.”

He held your cheek in his large palm, and lovingly kissed your lips.

“As you wish…”

——————————————————————————————–

He watched you sleeping. He watched the soft rise and fall of your chest, and the peaceful expression on your face, and your disheveled hair and your fluttering eyelids as you dreamt…

You were too good for him.

He felt like you were a diamond and he was coal. He felt like an Icarus that would have flown too close to a sun.

His throat tightened, and tears shined at the corner of his eyes.

Outside, dawn had brought a shy golden light to the world, that partially managed to enter through the window and curtains, to come resting upon your face and breasts.

You were like a dream… but dreams were not real. Dreams were always out of reach.

He clenched his jaw, and slowly, silently, he stood up, grabbing his clothes that laid disregarded on the floor, and he walked out of the bedroom.

He quickly dressed up, before walking to the hall. He didn’t stop to grab something to eat, or drink a coffee, or prepare a breakfast for you. He couldn’t. He knew that if he remained just a minute longer in your house, he wouldn’t be able to do what you needed him to do. He wouldn’t be able to leave you…

“Ryan?”

He froze at the sound of your voice, with still only one arm in the sleeve of his jacket.

“Where are you going, love?” you asked softly.

“I…”

He slowly turned towards you, looking up at you as you stood at the top of the wooden stairs, a mere T-shirt and some old shorts covering your curves. He finished to put his jacket on, still silent. But you didn’t need him to speak to understand what he was doing, and your eyes grew round in horror.

“Ryan… but… you arrived yesterday.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But where are you going to go? When will you come back?”

Ryan slowly shook his head.

“I’m sorry Y/N… I won’t come back.”

You walked down the stairs in a hurry.

“What do you mean you won’t come back?” you asked, panicked now.

“Let’s be honest with each other,” he said softly, and you could see that it was breaking his heart to speak the words he was forcing out of his mouth. “How could we be together? How could it work?”

“I thought… I thought that last night…”

“Last night was perfect,” Ryan interrupted you. “Last night was heaven. And I didn’t lie to you, I never meant to hurt you. I truly, earnestly love you. And that’s precisely why I’m setting you free.”

You merely remained standing there, frowning.

“I don’t understand anything…” you whispered, and he could see the tears that had appeared in your eyes and that you were struggling to hold back.

“We’re not living in the same world,” he tried to explain. “I don’t have a home. All I own in this world is in this pack and this guitar. That’s all I have. And you… look at where you live… I bet the neighbours hesitated to call the police at the sight of me.”

“Don’t be stupid…”

“I’m not being stupid. I’m being realistic. And being realistic means realizing that I’m not good enough for you. That I will never be able to offer you what you deserve.”

“But I don’t want anything… I just… I just want you to stay. I just want to be with you. And if you could write me a song or two it would be heaven,” you smiled.

He smiled back at you, before walking closer to you, stroking your cheek with the back of his fingers.

“I love Y/N,” he said softly. “I never loved anyone like I love you. I don’t think I ever will love anyone like I love you. All my songs will be about you. As long as I breathe to sing them, all my songs will be about you, about us…”

He shook his head.

“But it would be selfish of me to stay when I know you deserve better. I’m sorry, I should have seen it before…”

“But I don’t care about money,” you said, crying now. “I don’t care, Ryan. I earn enough money already, I don’t want yours. I want you. I don’t want you to buy me anything, I just want you. I’m almost ready to let you go if you tell me that you’ll come back. I’ll wait for you while you travel, I’ll be true, I promise just… _Promise me you’ll come back to me. Promise me I’ll see you again._ ”

He took you in his arms, holding you close to him, and he buried his face in your hair, trying to memorize your scent, the sensation of your skin under his calloused fingers, the feeling of your body against his…

He tried in just a few seconds to memorize as much of you as he could. He would hold onto this memory like a treasure for the rest of his days.

“Forgive me,” he whispered. “Please, please forgive me. I love you. I love you too much to let you ruin your life because of me.”

“You’re the one who will be ruining my life if you leave. Can’t you see it? How much I love? How much you’re breaking my heart? How I’ll be alone for the rest of my life if you leave, because I’ll never want anyone else than you anyway.”

He didn’t move, nor speak, and so you went on, hoping that he could see that he was wrong, hoping to make him change his mind….

“I don’t care about money,” you breathed. “I don’t care. I love you, because you’re talented, and charismatic, and kind, and sweet, and tender, and caring and you make me happier than I’ve ever been. I love listening to you as you sing, and I love watching you as you play guitar, and I love the way you kiss me, and the way you love me… Ryan…”

But he tore himself from your embrace, and without a word, he picked up his pack and his guitar and walked to the door.

“Ryan…”

He opened the door and stepped outside.

“RYAN!”

But he closed the door behind him and you were left alone, crying in the hall of your house.

What you didn’t know was that, as he walked down the street, Ryan was crying too.

—————————————————————————————–

Ryan had finally reached the trains. He looked for a moment at the shining metal bathed in the spring sun. It had taken him half an hour to get here, much less than what he had needed to go to your house the previous day. But then, he had not gotten lost today…

But there was something missing. He wasn’t excited at the idea of hopping inside a train and travel to a new city. He didn’t want to leave this time…

You were missing…

He closed his eyes, a new tear rolling down his cheek and getting lost in his short beard.

The same sentence was coming back over and over in his ears…

‘You’re the one who will be ruining my life if you leave.’

What if you were right? What if he was making a mistake by letting go of you? Perhaps you didn’t want better than him… After all, he didn’t care about your house, he didn’t give a damn about your money, he couldn’t have cared less about your neighbours… He loved you because you were _you_. And perhaps that was precisely why you loved him too…

He heard the loud whistle of the train cut the air.

It was now or never…

Behind him, a cab was passing by slowly, looking for customers.

It was now or never…

So he ran. He ran as fast as he could. He couldn’t miss it. If there is one time in his life that he couldn’t miss a ride, it was now.

He knocked on the window of the cab and the driver stopped, letting Ryan getting inside. He had barely sit at the back of the car that Ryan was already giving the driver your address.

“You have money?” the driver asked.

The universal question…

But Ryan took his wallet out and showed the driver the banknotes. He had about a hundred bucks in there. It was all he had. It was all his fortune.

And he didn’t care, because suddenly he had realized that you didn’t care either…

“Please, as quickly as you can,” he told the driver, who started to drive back towards your home.

It took him barely twenty minutes to guide Ryan through Philadelphia to your house. Ryan paid him, and jumped out of the car, running to your door.

He frantically knocked on the wooden surface, but you didn’t reply. He checked the doorknob… the door was unlocked so he opened it in a hurry…

And he froze at the sight of you.

You were sitting there, in the hall, on the ground, your arms wrapped around your knees, crying…

And it was all his fault.

He threw his bag and guitar away, and hurried towards you.

He took you in his arms, kneeling down next to you, and you held on him for dear life.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he breathed, kissing you everywhere from your hair to your neck. “I’m sorry, forgive me. I was wrong. I was wrong, I can see it now…”

“You’re not leaving?” you asked in a shaking voice.

“No, no I’m not leaving. I’m sorry. I was wrong, but I understand now. And I won’t leave, I won’t leave… God, I love so much…”

“You’ll stay then?”

“Yes, I’ll stay. Please, please, please forgive me. I’m begging you…”

“Don’t do that again,” you said through gritted teeth. “Do you hear? Don’t you ever do something like that again.”

“I won’t, I promise. You’ll see, I’ll make everything work. I’ll find a job and I’ll help you pay the bills and…”

“I don’t want you to find a job. I don’t want you to change. I just want you…”

“I’m here, I’m here and I’m staying.”

“Does that mean that you’re staying for good? That you’re going to unpack your things, and stay here? Forever?”

He let out a little laugh, running his hands through your hair.

“I love you,” he said. “ _How could I live without you?_ ”


End file.
